Speak A Thousand Words
by UltraM2000
Summary: (Ranpa x Rinran) Based on the events of Saiyuki Reload anime episode 4. A visit to Rinran's clinic finds a parting gift lovingly enshrined.


This fanfiction was inspired by events in Saiyuki Reload's 4th episode. I'd usually romanise the demon's name as Ranpa, but if it's Rampa in the anime, Rampa it will then stay.

Ranpa's seriously too bishounen for a youkai. His voice actor's not bad, too. Kudos to Matsuno Taki! Asano Ruri was also a lovely Rinran. ^_^

Speak A Thousand Words

**Disclaimer: **Don't own Saiyuki. Small hints of Rampa x Rinran. Fluff warning.

It's a wonderful portrait of the female doctor that hangs on the wall opposite the black leather-covered examination couch, framed carefully in gold. It almost exactly resembles Rinran, except her hair is blue-black, not the smooth and almost luminous light brown in the picture, and you as a new resident have never seen her wear that particular pink _qi pao_. She has never worn it since she received the picture. Everything else is perfect, however, from the clips in her hair and the way it falls across her face, to the long lab coat she is never seen without, to the royal blue of her eyes. The colours seem richer than even real life.

You ask who painted the wonderful painting after she removes the thermometer from your mouth, and she smiles faintly, tilting her head to one side. "A friend," she replies simply. "One called Rampa. He's done more. Maybe you've seen them around town." You realise that you have, here and there. They have always been of demons and humans together in harmony, and they make you strangely happy. You do not see why the doctor's smile seems so melancholy. There is another picture she has, of two children. The youkai boy is placing a crown of cerise flowers upon his human playmate's head, and the human girl's hands are full of the same pink blooms. She looks like the good doctor herself, and so you now have a good idea of what the artist looks like. He would be _very_ handsome for a demon.

"Where is he now?" you ask as she writes your prescription, and the pen jumps across the paper in a diagonal blue slash. She apologises, crumples up the paper, writes a new one. Her hand trembles ever so slightly as she continues, and you realize that you've touched a raw nerve.

She remembers apples, the smell of paint and new brushes, dark blonde hair that framed the dear face and green eyes that reminded her of shimmering fields of flowers. Those days were happy and innocent, before the negative energy wave turned every demon into a ravening, maddened creature, even the one who brought her apples and pictures and his simple, pleasant smile. Demon or not, he was a friend, a good one since childhood.

She misses the bearer of the cerise blooms. The apples he brought her were always sweet.

She gives you the prescription, but her eyes are not on you, unusual for the attentive medic. She is still thinking of what the picture means to her and Rampa. Only after he broke a cup in his hands when the Minus Wave temporarily overwhelmed his defences in her office, only after he delivered the picture, only after she plucked up the courage to visit his wooden cottage just outside the village and saw what a mess it was in, paints all over the floor and a paintbrush broken cleanly down the middle did she realise how desperately he had been struggling for the past few weeks.

All the same, when the picture was delivered, it was clean and every stroke was placed with care and control. The only evidence that he had finally been broken by the cursed energy was in the wavering scrawl of his signature. It had taken all of his conscious effort to keep going and finish, but in the end…

"…and that should effect a cure in the next few days or so. Come back if it gets any worse."

She remembers once more the blonde hair in disarray, the green eyes with the pupils contracted to feral slits, the sharpened, knife-like canines and the muscles over his shoulder tensed and hunching his head down, and the tension evident upon his face. A wild face it was, a dangerous one. It was not her Rampa who looked at her, not her Rampa who growled low and long as he gazed upon her face, not her Ranpa who rushed her with swift, bounding steps and a cry that seemed to be torn forcibly from his lungs.

Was he ever hers in the first place, she wonders, for she was the only one unafraid of him.

She remembers the flash of white silk, the gleam of sun upon a blonde, surprisingly unshaven monk's crown (the fact he is a Sanzo, THE Sanzo, Genjyo Sanzo heading West to quell the Minus Wave, does not sink in until much later), and the stinging ring of a furious gunshot. The Smith & Wesson barked once, and the Rampa-who-wasn't stopped in his tracks. The promised painting dropped to the ground with a clatter. He followed shortly after with a much more mundane, dull thump.

It was a dream, she thought. It was reality, the Sanzo told her.

The brunette with the green eyes several shades darker than Rampa's now dull, clouded ones had picked up the picture and given it to her. The promise made physical; a last triumph of soul over body for just long enough. The picture was what bound the crumbling psyche together, and when it was finished, alas, so was the creator.

Death and creation are locked in that rendition of her gentle smile. The eyes seem to glimmer softly at her, self telling self to bear up and be strong. As long as she has the picture, as long as, in her private moments, she can run her hand along the dry, scratchy apple-scented canvas and remember her good, close friend, she can remain strong. She will not buckle. Even if it meant she could meet Rampa, she would not buckle.

"_Sensei_," you ask her softly as you leave with your cold pills, "Did you perhaps consider Rampa more than a close friend? Did you love him?"

She looks up at you and then at the picture, at the one patient she has lost forever. She squares her shoulders, stands tall and smiles bravely at you, a smile that touches her eyes very briefly.

"Yes, perhaps I did."


End file.
